Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Complete
- Pages
- about 540
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 9.9 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
"For though most men are contented only to see a river as it runs by
them, and talk of the changes in it as they happen; when it is troubled,
or when clear; when it drowns the country in a flood, or forsakes it in a
drought: yet he that would know the nature of the water, and the causes of
those accidents (so as to guess at their continuance or return), must find
out its source, and observe with what strength it rises, what length it
runs, and how many small streams fall in, and feed it to such a height,
as make it either delightful or terrible to the eye, and useful or
dangerous to the country about it."...SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE'S NETHERLANDS.
TO THE RIGHT HON.
THE EARL OF RIPON,
VISCOUNT GODERICH,
Lord Privy Seal
&c. &c. &c.
The completion of this Work affords me the opportunity I have long desired
of thanking your Lordship thus publicly, for the kindness with which you
acceded to my request to be permitted to dedicate it to you.
The encouragement your Lordship was pleased to give me has served to
stimulate me in the prosecution of a task, which would, I fear, have been
too great for me to have accomplished in my present condition, under any
ordinary views of ambition. Indeed, labouring as I have been for many
months past, under an almost total deprivation of sight, (the effect of
exposure and anxiety of mind in the prosecution of geographical
researches,) I owe it to the casual assistance of some of my friends, that
I am at length enabled to lay these results before your Lordship and the
public.
While I feel a painful conviction that many errors must necessarily
pervade a work produced under such unfavourable circumstances, it affords
me no small consolation to reflect that Your Lordship has been aware of my
situation, and will be disposed to grant me every reasonable indulgence.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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